Classes are going well. I have a lot of homework but it is all interesting so I don't mind doing it so much. My italian class is getting a little bit better even though it is mostly in english (we are currently watching an italian movie with english substitles - what is the point!?) but we had a quiz the other day which I think I did well on. Unfortunately, my professor, Domenico has started asking me to correct the mistakes of others in the class which is not really a proper way to approach the situation, but at least it is more challenging for me. I am teaching myself a lot of italian too, I am now reading children's books in Italian (with the help of a dictionary always) and have just worked my way through the story of Pandora in Italian. My extra curricular reading lately is cookbooks and children's books....
My politics class is pretty much the same format as my topics class in NYC but the material is more interesting since we are really learning about the roots of "democracy" and it is a truly interesting time to be learning about such a thing. It also corresponds nicely with the time period that we are studying in my sociology of the arts class.
My SOA class is definetely my favorite class. My professor is an old Italian lady named Professor Ciacci (pronounced Cha-chee) who speaks great english but lapses into Italian during our lectures (somehow an interesting 2.5 hour period) which I love. She also has the tendency to fall asleep mid lecture. She is still really interesting, very realistic and grounded and super creative. She is very fixed on including students (since we only have 5 in our class) and she has some really incredible field trips planned. It is one of those classes where I am writing down notes for myself in the middle of class notes. It reminds me a lot of my post-modern poetry class last year and we have some cool trips planned to contemporary art galleries and photography exhibits. One of them is a gallery where they focus on the experience of interacting with the art and the artist so the entire viewing is considered a part of the art so I am pretty excited about that!
My painting class is, er, interesting. I am a pretty bad painter! I spent three hours last wednesday night painting a black-green blob that was supposed to be a bottle. My teacher told me she didnt think it was so bad for my first time. I decided to take that as a compliment. Anyway, I am really enjoying the process of sitting for three hours in a well lit studio and playing with paint.
My classes are all really well tied together as I paint, where I learn first hand the artistic process, and then I learn about the relevance of art and the process in my soa class, and then I learn about the political context in which this process was developing and then the whole darn thing is in italian!
So thats pretty much everything. My roomates are little bit sick and I am definetely fighting something off so I am drinking lots of tea, keeping the windows open and eating well. Alright, its way past gelato time!
P.s We got locked IN our apartment today and couldnt get out until about 3. Thats okay though.
P.P.S I also went to a an AWESOME vintage fair yesterday and I got a shirt, some shades, and a bracelet.
So I will leave you with this little anecdote of Italian culture:
This happened in my Italian class the other day. We were learning how to describe ourselves and we were about to graduate past "I am tall" and "I am stubborn" into the world of hobbies and activities. We learned to say I like....(to play soccer, to read a book) etc. One of the girls in my class (there is only one boy) raised her hand and asked (in english, of course) how to say "I hate". My professor, Domenico, looked at her with a confused facial expression. "Hate" he repeated, asking her if the word was correct (his english is about as good as my italian). "Hate" she said again, and he went over to the white board and asked to spell it. "H-A-T-E" she spelled. "Hate" he said again, "Hate, like the opposite of love?" The girl nodded and Domenico, finally understanding, replied, "No, we do not have a word for this. It is too strong".
I love this!
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